But in the meantime, I managed to have a look at The Scream Man's MP Grapple. Brief thoughts:
* The toy is waaay tighter than Inferno
* The crane is much trickier/fiddlier to transform than the ladder. One thing to bear in mind when transforming to robot mode is to ensure that the crane is completely compacted before folding into the torso. It won't work if it's even slightly not pushed in all the way. The instructions text does explicitly state this in Japanese, but for those of you who can't read Japanese it isn't obvious if you only look at the illustrations.
* The rear part of the crane assembly is really tricky to transform when going back to truck mode.

Overall the toy isn't quite as intuitive or fun as Inferno, and much of this has to do with the extra bulk of the crane over a ladder. The bulkier robot mode does help Grapple look more different from Inferno though. It's still a neat toy in it's own right but it just doesn't work quite as well as Inferno. I'll be able to form a more detailed opinion whenever I get my MP Grapple. I'll also take comparison pics with my reissue Grapple. I took my 1985 G1 Grapple along to The Scream Man's place tonight and yeah... that toy has seen better days.

Worth getting? If you're not planning on completing the set of MP Cars and you only want to get one of the MP Mitsubishi Fusos, go with Inferno. So I'd vote "Only if" you want to complete the set.

I really enjoy the different features offered here. You get three different faces, two different chests and even different coloured arm blasters to replace his hands! The proportions are very good and you can either have an orange helmet to match his cartoon appearance or a grey one to match his toy one. The articulation is excellent with nearly every joint being swiveable which provides one with a multitude of posing capabilities.

VEHICLE MODE

This is where we get down a little. It’s a great crane truck, don’t get me wrong, its just that like MP Inferno the cartoon version had less detail than the toy and since the MP line tries to replicate the cartoon we lose out on some of that detail here. It’s a very nice Crane Truck though, and it comes with optional extras such as the hook being replaced with a grabbing claw or bucket. The colour is nice, the proportions are nice – just could have stood to have more detail.

Overall
Grapple is not the most popular character. But to anyone who is a big G1 lover or is a Masterpiece completionist then this is very much a necessary character. And trust me, you will enjoy him more than you think!

Back of the legs, the crane and the crane base (which encases the head).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jellico

I may have misheard it but one of the reviews said the Japanese on the back of the box said the bulk was based on the cartoon model?

The additional bulk around the head would be for that reason, but not the additional bulk on the legs. The crane arm is simply a bulkier piece than a ladder, and that additional mass needs to go somewhere in robot mode. Much like the hip panels on MP Ironhide/Ratchet, this is essentially vehicle mode kibble which has been displaced to a more discreet part of the robot body to make the overall look more cartoon-accurate. By placing it on the back of the legs it means that the rest of the toy will look more toon-accurate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigTransformerTrev

This is where we get down a little. It’s a great crane truck, don’t get me wrong, its just that like MP Inferno the cartoon version had less detail than the toy and since the MP line tries to replicate the cartoon we lose out on some of that detail here. It’s a very nice Crane Truck though, and it comes with optional extras such as the hook being replaced with a grabbing claw or bucket. The colour is nice, the proportions are nice – just could have stood to have more detail.

Agreed. MP Grapple does enjoy having additional lines on the shins which Inferno lacks, but that's purely because Grapple's cartoon model happened to have those lines which Inferno never did. So that part of Grapple incidentally enjoys a bit more extra detail. But I totally agree with your sentiment about MPs cherry picking the best of both worlds from toy and cartoon likeness instead of being so slavishly cartoon-accurate. Cos I'd imagine that a toy-toon hybrid designed MP Inferno would look more like this. The core engineer/design would be the same as what we already have now, but that additional detail on the sculpting would've been just absolutely gorgeous. But I suspect that we're in a minority here. The majority of fans have been crying for cartoon-accuracy for years and TakaraTOMY is giving them exactly what they want. So I can't really fault them for doing it.

Well because Grapple appears in a comic along with the Constructicons on the UW Devestator instructions my son wanted to watch 'The Master Builders' episode this morning.

Even when doing construction he still had one arm as a blaster. It explained to me why the MP toy comes with two different coloured arm blasters, as the one in that episode is dark grey as opposed to a lighter one he has used in different episodes. So I reckon it was pretty much a constant that one hand was like that.

I don't remember Grapple ever having both hands in either the G1 cartoon or comics. A lot of people obviously remember Grapple building the solar tower in the G1 cartoon, but in the comics it was Grapple who built OMEGA SUPREME. If Hasbro were to ever release this toy I reckon that it'd be cool if it came with a cardboard blueprint for Omega Supreme and/or even a miniature Omega Supreme PVC figurine instead of the solar tower. It'd help make their version more distinctive from TakaraTOMY's. Toy-accurate yellow eyes would also be the bomb.

I don't remember Grapple ever having both hands in either the G1 cartoon or comics. A lot of people obviously remember Grapple building the solar tower in the G1 cartoon, but in the comics it was Grapple who built OMEGA SUPREME. If Hasbro were to ever release this toy I reckon that it'd be cool if it came with a cardboard blueprint for Omega Supreme and/or even a miniature Omega Supreme PVC figurine instead of the solar tower. It'd help make their version more distinctive from TakaraTOMY's. Toy-accurate yellow eyes would also be the bomb.

That's interesting I didn't know that, I definitely prefer this over inferno now.

Just opened mine tonight. Another excellent Masterpiece figure. Never had the G1 toy and he's not one of my fondest characters but I appreciate the engineering that has been put into the transformation. Also an insane amount of accessories.